Living with Roommates

What to Expect and How to Prepare…

The roommate relationship is often a crucial part of a student’s college experience. Being away from home and living with another person (sometimes for the first time) can be challenging as well as exciting. It is important that students have realistic expectations of the roommate relationship. Roommates can become friends or may strictly share a common space. Whatever the relationship, it is necessary to have respect, boundaries and communication between roommates. When beginning a relationship with your roommate, be aware of yourself: understand your own quirks, strengths and vices.

Roommate Agreement

We require all roommates to complete a roommate agreement at the beginning of the fall semester and any time there is a roommate change. These agreements outline several topics that could potentially cause problems between roommates. After reviewing and discussing the agreement together, the residents of each room come up with boundaries that they will agree to live by for the year. Each room’s Resident Advisor (RA) is available to help facilitate this process. The agreement is filed in the Area Coordinator’s office for future reference if a conflict arises, a copy is available for residents for their use in discussing with one another about possible issues.

Roommate Agreements should be completed online within the first 2 weeks of the fall semester and any time there is a roommate change. Please contact your Resident Advisor (RA) with any questions you have or help in completing this process.

Tips for Successful Roommate Relationships

From the very start of your relationship with your roommates, communication and honesty are key.

Respect each other for your differences and work together to find commonalities.

Talk to your roommates directly rather than behind his or her backs.

When discussing issues that may arise in the room, use statements such as "I feel like you are..." rather than statements that can sound blaming and often shut people down.

Compromise - work together to find solutions that will benefit all members of the room.

Most importantly: utilize your roommate agreement. It is there to serve as a guideline. By taking it seriously in the beginning and adhering to the established boundaries, you will avoid many problems. Use them as a reference point if one roommate is not staying within the set agreement. This is a resource that will only be effective if used by the students.

We are here to help

While the Residence Life Staff does encourage students to communicate and work through roommate conflicts, we are always here to help. You have a trained and talented Resident Advisors (RA) staff as well as experienced Area Coordinators. Do not hesitate to use them as a resource as you sort through your roommate concerns. Once students have used roommate agreement, mediation, and communication to work through roommate issues, if a change is desired, please see your Area Coordinator.